Understanding Your Phone Bills

It seems that these days, service providers make our bills as confusing as possible so we won’t keep a close watch on what we are being charged and why. It is very true that a lot of people look at their phone bill, get frustrated with the way it is laid out, and give up on trying to figure out what all of those charges are. This is how people end up with third party billing charges and unnecessary service charges for insurance among other things.


The best way to stay on top of your phone bills whether they are your own personal bills or the ones at work is to occasionally call your service provider and talk to them. It is hard to get through and frustrating to spend what feels like a month on hold every time you call, but it is well worth the time it takes when you see your bill not getting out of control. I will usually call from work when I need to talk to a service provider because I know it will be a quick conversation to just touch base with them and I can put the call on speakerphone while I am on hold so I can do something else while I wait.

Once I (finally) get a real, live person on the phone, I will ask them any questions I have about my bill and make sure that I am getting the lowest rate for my service plan. Surprisingly, if you haven’t spoken to them in a while, usually the person will tell you right away where savings are available without you even having to ask. Taking the time to call and speak to a person at the phone company will give you the chance to make sure that you know what you are actually getting charged and what those charges are for.

Some phone companies will try to sell insurance on your cabling in your building which is generally pretty unnecessary. If you feel better knowing you have it, go ahead and pay for it, but it won’t help you if you have a problem – the phone company will send someone out who will tell you there is a problem and leave without doing anything to fix it. Then, there is the third party billing. You can generally tell when this is taking place because you will be looking through your bills and suddenly the logo at the top of the page will change. That is because all of the charges on that page are coming from a third party and really have nothing to do with your service. These are easy enough to cancel and usually you can even get a refund for the entire time you were being charged for that bogus service. Just hang onto those bills so you can prove when it actually started.

If you are willing to invest some of your valuable time into making sure you look over your service provider bills carefully each month, you can save a lot of money in the long run. It is very important to let your service provider know that you would like slamming insurance and protection against third party billing. These are free account guards that will protect you from getting charged for bogus services that do nothing for you. You also need to make sure that your service provider knows that you look carefully at your bills and that you will call them about anything that looks different or strange. Quite often, the tactic is to call later in the afternoon or evening to catch a part time employee who doesn’t know any better and get them to authorize adding unnecessary service to your account.

If you are smart and proactive about your service provider bills, you can have great success in saving money and time both at home and at work, so make that call and start saving!